


Truth Makes Free

by Maltheniel



Series: The Once and Future King [7]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Gilli is a healer, Kinship, Merlin is Court Sorcerer and struggling a bit, fixing the lack of fanfic about these two as friends, in which we also get to see how Merlin and Aithusa became friends again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:08:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25128259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maltheniel/pseuds/Maltheniel
Summary: Gilli is living with the druids when he gets the news that Camelot has freed magic, and he has never forgotten that Merlin promised someday they would meet again.He doesn't necessarily expect his visit to lead to opening the first magical shop in Camelot, or to meeting a white dragon. But when you have magic, you never really know how your life will go.At bedrock, though, he and Merlin both have magic. They're kin. And that's enough to build a friendship on.
Relationships: Gilli & Merlin (Merlin)
Series: The Once and Future King [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1774627
Comments: 12
Kudos: 48





	Truth Makes Free

When the news came that the Queen of Camelot was lifting the ban on magic, Gilli was living near the druids, working as a healer.

He'd never been able to get Merlin's words out of his head. _Magic is not meant for fighting. It's not meant to bring you glory._ Gilli didn't agree with everything Merlin had decided to do, even now, but he had the idea that Merlin could probably use his magic to bring himself personal glory, and never had. And a man with that kind of strength was a man worth listening to. Gilli had never used his magic offensively in a fight again.

Also, he wanted to be able to heal himself without alerting everyone in the vicinity he was doing it, and without making himself scream in pain. Hence figuring out how to be a healer.

He'd actually discovered he had a talent for it, and Iseldir's druids didn't mind him practicing on them. Gilli would never become a druid himself – they were far too mystical for that – but they were brave enough to not bother hiding their magical heritage, and he would always respect them for that. Besides, Iseldir took in anyone who needed a home, and Gilli admired him for that, was grateful it extended to him and gave him a safe space to do magic.

Anyway, he was there the messenger came from the palace. He wasn't wearing a red cloak or armor, but everyone in the camp was suddenly on edge the moment he got close anyway.

Gilli was in the midst of the camp, caring for a boy who'd broken his arm falling out of a tree earlier in the day, and didn't know exactly what was going on, but he did notice everyone going stiff as a board around him. He'd asked to be left out of their mind-speak communications, because he wasn't a druid and he preferred to have his mind to himself, thank you very much, but obviously everyone else had just gotten an important one.

"What's going on?" he asked of no one in particular.

"There's a rider coming," the boy's mother answered shortly. "Not dressed as a knight, but who knows."

She reached out to wrap her arms tightly around her son, and despite the fact that he wasn't linked to her, Gilli got the image in his mind of a sword held to the throat of a blond druid boy and utter, helpless terror.

He scrambled to his feet and stalked to the front of the camp. He might have decided not to fight with magic, but he had a sword and if he didn't give his last breath for his kin, he might as well never have been born.

Gilli reached the cave entrance in time to realize that Iseldir was standing in it, apparently utterly unafraid. He had no time to question, however, before the aforeseen rider came crashing through the trees and dismounted in front of them.

"Welcome," Iseldir said steadily before anything could happen. "What is your purpose here?"

"I mean you no harm," the rider said quickly. "I simply came to tell you that the Queen of Camelot has legalized magic."

Gilli's thoughts froze.

In the background, he could dimly hear the messenger babbling on about how the queen was sending riders to all the druid camps as he pulled an official-looking scroll out of his saddlebags and handed it to Iseldir.

"Is it true?" one of the other elders gasped, coming into the entrance.

"There is nothing reeking of treachery about this," Iseldir answered, reading the scroll. Gilli wasn't sure if he meant the scroll or the whole situation and doubted the vagueness was an accident.

"I beg your pardon, but you are some of the last to know," the messenger admitted. "What with your being so near Essetir and all. But Merlin – he said to call him Emrys to you – insisted that all the druids must know."

There was a great murmuring about Emrys among the druids, who were all gathering round with hope dawning deep in their tired eyes. "If Emrys has said this at last, perhaps it is true," the elder whispered.

But Gilli's mind had latched onto a completely different name in that comment. He spun to Iseldir.

"Surely you can spare me for a few days?" he asked. "Contact me if I am really needed." He inclined his head to indicate the mind-speak that he dared not reference in front of the rider.

"Of course," Iseldir answered. "Might I ask where you go?"

"To Camelot," Gilli called over his shoulder, as he turned to get one of the horses. "I'll bring back a report of whether this is true," he added, though that wasn't what had been on his mind at all when he decided to go to Camelot.

No, it was the mention that Merlin was still there. Merlin who was the first outside of his own family who had dared reveal his magic to Gilli. Merlin who had said they were kin and meant it. Merlin who had said their paths might cross again.

Gilli was determined to _make_ them cross.

And if Camelot was still unsafe for magic – well, he had no identifying tattoo. He'd gotten in and out of Camelot once; he could do it again.

When Gilli reached Camelot, it was different from how he remembered it before. A bit bigger, but less crowded, without anyone there for the tournament. But there were a suspicious number of people who looked like druids in the streets.

Well, at least they weren't being rounded up and flung in the dungeons.

Gilli wore his ring into Camelot instead of hiding it in his bag and dared anyone to say a word about it.

The innkeeper gave him a room of his own with no fuss this time, which Gilli was probably more grateful for than the situation warranted. When he'd taken care of his horse and pocketed the key to his room, he stepped out onto the street and stared up at the gleaming white palace walls.

There was one small problem with his plan: Gilli had no idea how to contact Merlin.

Last time he'd been here, Merlin had had some association with the Court Physician, or at least they'd always watched the tournament together. And Gilli had picked up enough to guess he was the Prince's servant.

He certainly wouldn't be the Prince's servant any longer. Not with the King dead.

Well, all Gilli could do was wander up into the courtyard and see where things went from there. Not the worst plan he'd ever had.

The castle gates were open, and Gilli ducked into the courtyard unchallenged; the guards on the walls noticed him, but clearly thought he had some business inside. Gilli folded and refolded his hands around themselves as he ducked through the gate; there were knights and servants crossing the courtyard, but Gilli felt very out of place. It was impossible to forget that if anyone other than Merlin had found out about his magic last time, he would have lost his life here.

It was impossible to forget that he still might, on this trip.

Before he could get uncomfortable enough to go back to the inn and try hitting Merlin's mind with a random probe of mind-speak or something, however, Merlin himself suddenly came out of a set of doors, walking down steps toward the courtyard with a man in druid's robes.

Gilli knew Merlin instantly; the black hair and keen blue eyes hadn't changed in the years between, and he had to keep himself from shouting across the courtyard to him. He settled for walking across it quickly as Merlin escorted the druid to his horse.

"Yes, I will make sure to speak to the Queen about reparations," he said, as the druid grasped the horse's reins.

"I am sure you will, Emrys," the druid returned, and Gilli was too busy with other things to try parsing the dry sarcasm in the druid's tone.

Then the horse's hoofs went clattering away across the courtyard, and Merlin stood a moment alone. Gilli took an instant to observe him, remembering their last meeting and Merlin's offer of kinship.

Merlin now looked old. He had always been older than Gilli, but just now he looked old as if the weight of far more years than he had lived hung on his shoulders. He was dressed more richly than he had been before, in an embroidered blue jacket over a white shirt, but he still wore a blue neckerchief. Above all, though, he looked tired, tired as though every day was a chore to get through, and he rubbed his hands briefly over his face and through his too-long hair before he turned back to the stairs.

Gilli understood that kind of tired. He'd lived it.

"Merlin," he said, quietly.

Merlin spun around, forcing a smile to his face that suddenly seemed to become more real when he saw Gilli.

"Gilli!" he exclaimed. "Is that really you?"

"It's me," Gilli said, beaming. He stepped forward to meet Merlin's outstretched hand with his own, and then because Merlin looked like he could use it, he pulled him into a quick hug.

"How have you been, old friend?" Merlin asked eagerly as they drew back.

"I've become a healer," Gilli told him, and didn't resent the relief he saw cross Merlin's face quickly. "And you?"

"It's – it's been a long road," Merlin answered, quietly and more honest than Gilli had quite expected. "But if you've come to find out if magic is legal now – it is."

Gilli realized in that moment that he hadn't believed it until just then, standing in Camelot's courtyard, with Merlin telling him. Relief, mixed with so many other emotions he couldn't name them, swept over him, and for a moment his knees felt weak.

But focusing on Merlin's tone was easier than focusing on his emotions, and there was something very odd about it. We will be free. He'd never forgotten Merlin's words at the end of his last visit or the incredible hope and faith they were said with. Yet now Merlin announced that magic was free with more weariness in his voice than joy.

"We're free, then," he said with tentative hope.

"We're free," Merlin agreed, and with that a glimmer of the relief Gilli had expected came through.

A moment later, he shook his head and became more animated. "Where are you staying?" he asked.

"I have a place at the inn," Gilli told him.

"You could stay with me," Merlin offered. "I have enough room now. If you wanted, that is," he added quickly.

If there was one word Merlin had used to describe himself before that had stuck in Gilli's head all these years, it would be lonely. Apparently that hadn't changed in the years in between, and Gilli felt a moment of irrational anger at everyone who had overlooked his kin.

"Of course I'll stay with you," he said firmly.

"Is it really true that we're free?" Gilli asked Merlin that night, up in his chambers in one of the turrets.

Merlin shot him a sharp glance. "Of course we are," he said. "I wouldn't lie – about that," he added quickly. "Why do you ask?"

"Because there's none of the joy in you I would have expected at that," Gilli answered.

It was blunt, but Gilli had never pretended he wasn't blunt.

Merlin winced and looked away, and for a moment Gilli wished he had learned more tact somewhere.

"It's – it's not everything I imagined it would be," Merlin said quietly to the fire. "Arthur's dead, and it's – it's hard when every druid who comes here wants to complain once he realizes magic is truly free. _The opportune moment was missed – Albion will never be formed,"_ he said, sitting up and clearly imitating the complaints. _"Magic was not returned for years after you came here while our people suffered. The Once and Future King is dead before his time._ And underlying every remark, the question of _what were you doing, Emrys?_ What were you doing while our people suffered? What were you doing failing to form Albion? And what none of them – none of them! – seem to realize, is that while they can sit there and criticize, _I am Emrys!_ What was I meant to do with all this destiny? What was I to do when I was a farm boy from Ealdor being told I had to protect a prat and bring back magic and unite a kingdom? Where were any of the druids to tell me what I was meant to do when all I had was an enigmatic dragon with an agenda to guide me through it all? How was I supposed to avoid failing in _**everything I was meant to do?!"**_

By the time he had finished, Merlin had leapt to his feet and was nearly shouting his complaint to the skies.

Gilli squeezed his hands together, not knowing exactly what to say in the face of that torrent of grief and pain.

"I'm sorry," he offered at last, and he truly, really was.

Merlin stood panting a moment, then he dropped boneless back onto his bed.

"I'm sorry, Gilli," he said quietly. "I didn't mean to say all that to you."

_But you needed to say it,_ Gilli thought. Before he could say that, though, Merlin was adding, "I – this afternoon in the courtyard, I thought you were going to blame me for not bringing magic back fast enough as everyone else does."

He looked up, a shy hope glimmering in his eyes.

"It's fine if you do blame me," he added quickly. "It's my fault, really."

Gilli couldn't stand this any longer.

"Merlin," he interrupted, "when I met you, I didn't know you were Emrys. I didn't know Emrys existed. All I saw in you was a man more powerful than anyone he knew, forced to hide what he was and live his life as a servant, lonely and alone. I didn't want you to be lonely, Merlin. That was all I wanted of you."

There were tears shining too bright in Merlin's eyes; he dropped his eyes from Gilli's to look at the floor.

"I only heard about Emrys later from the druids," Gilli said, and saw how Merlin flinched slightly at the name. "And when I realized it was you, I didn't expect supernatural things from you. You're only a man, Merlin," he added as gently and truthfully as he could. "There's no way you wouldn't make mistakes."

"Only a man," Merlin mocked. He had rested his forehead on his hand, and it shadowed his face. "I'm a warlock, born with magic, the most powerful sorcerer to live, a dragonlord, Emrys, destined to be one side of a coin with the Once and Future King, destined to bring magic back and form Albion and protect Arthur, with my conscience or against it. I can't _afford_ to make mistakes. And I'm terrified of admitting all that even to you," he added, looking up with a bitter laugh.

Gilli felt his heart twist with how little sympathy Merlin had clearly ever received for anything.

"You had to hide it all so long," he said.

"That I forgot who I was," Merlin returned, with a twist of his lips that made a mockery of a smile.

Clearly he remembered Gilli's comment of long ago. Gilli still thought it was true, but he wished he hadn't said it now.

Blunt was still the only way he knew how to be, though. "That it's no wonder you're afraid to say the truth," he said. "By magic, Merlin, I'm half-afraid to use magic anywhere but in a druid's camp myself, and I swore I'd never be ashamed of who I was. It—it changes you, living in fear."

Merlin ducked his head again. "And it's my fault you learned to live that way," he murmured.

He was clearly waiting for Gilli to agree, to condemn him to the prison of guilt he'd built for himself, and Gilli was suddenly impatient even in his sympathy.

"No," he said fiercely, so fiercely that Merlin looked up quickly. "Destiny or no destiny, Emrys or no Emrys, you're just one man, trying not to get yourself executed, and it's not fair of the druids to blame everything on you."

The tears in Merlin's eyes spilled suddenly over his lashes and ran down his cheeks. "Sorry," he muttered, ducking his head to rub at his cheeks. "I'm sorry."

But for a moment when Gilli had absolved him, there had been hope in his eyes. Clearly even he hadn't known how much he needed someone, perhaps even someone with magic, to say that to him.

"Don't apologize," Gilli told him. "We're kin. It's alright between kin."

He hated seeing anyone in any kind of pain, had hated it ever since he learned to hate his actions in the tournament, ever since he started becoming a healer and trying to take away pain. Merlin was in so much emotional pain that it filled the room, and Gilli hated it.

He moved to sit on the bed beside Merlin and let their shoulders brush. "It's not your fault," he said steadily. "Everything that has gone wrong in the history of the world isn't your fault. I don't blame you one bit for this being the time magic becomes free."

Merlin choked a bit on a sob, bent over with his face buried in his hands. For all he was a healer, Gilli wasn't the best with crying people, but he rested a hand gently on Merlin's back and rubbed it softly up and down.

They stayed like that for a while, until Merlin suddenly sat up and tossed his hair out of his face, rubbing all traces of tears out of his eyes.

"Thanks, Gilli," he said quietly.

Gilli spoke quickly to cut off the apology he was pretty sure was coming. "You needed someone to tell you that," he said. "I'm sorry I'm the first to say it instead of blaming you."

Merlin shrugged, but the weight of tiredness that had been clinging visibly to his shoulders ever since Gilli had seen him had faded, and he sat straighter than before.

"We are free," he said, changing the subject, and this time there was a touch more of the wonder in his voice that there had been years ago. "Any ideas what to do with the freedom?"

"What are you doing?" Gilli asked, getting up and moving back to his chair to be able to see Merlin better.

For the first time Merlin looked really embarrassed. "I'm the Court Sorcerer," he said. "Gwen – the Queen – that was part of her stipulation for freeing magic."

Gilli grinned – both in a friendly way at his friend's discomfort and because he thought that after years of hiding there was no one who should be rewarded more. "That explains the fancier coat, then," he said cheerfully. "And I don't know – I might move to Camelot and work as a healer here."

He hadn't decided up until that moment, but as soon as he said the words, they felt right, somehow.

Merlin looked slightly taken aback. "There's no need for you to move to Camelot," he said, clearly sensing Gilli's underlying desire to stay fairly near him.

"I have no deep ties to anywhere else," Gilli told him, perfectly truthfully. "Besides, if we're reintroducing magic, we have to teach anyone who's not kin that it doesn't corrupt. I don't know any better way than healing to do that."

"You won't get many clients for a while," Merlin warned him, but his smile, though small, seemed real this time.

Gilli laughed. "You think I care about that?" he asked gaily, and felt as if he was finally on the path he had always been meant to take.

Gilli had had his little healer's hut open in the lower town for a few months before Merlin took him along on the dragon adventure.

His place was the first openly magical shop in Camelot, and of course it was treated with a lot of suspicion. Any clients who came only came because they were stupidly brave or stupidly curious, or both, and there were a lot of hecklers. But Gilli had learned years ago to look those who despised him in the eyes and come out intact. He knew, now, that nothing they could say would ever mean anything to him again. And he wasn't afraid of taking the brunt of the suspicion if he could pave the way for others with magic to feel safe here.

He hadn't seen all that much of Merlin since moving to Camelot, which he wasn't surprised by; the kinship they would have would always be more that of fond cousins than of brothers. But he came back to his little place one afternoon after going out to gather herbs to find Merlin sitting quietly in the shop. He had left it guarded with magic, but he wasn't surprised that Merlin either hadn't noticed or had walked right through it.

"Hey," he said, walking over to a bench to sort his herbs.

"Hey," Merlin echoed. He looked less ghostly than he had the last time Gilli had met him, but barely less haunted.

"Are the druids behaving any better?" Gilli asked.

That startled a short laugh out of Merlin. "A little, perhaps," he said, which Gilli knew meant no, and he was briefly furious with anyone who hurt Merlin further all over again. But Merlin had moved on to the point before he found anything to say; maybe Merlin had learned that Gilli liked blunt honesty.

"There's – there's something I need to do," he said. "And the Queen doesn't want me to do it alone. There's a couple of knights coming, but –" he paused, and swallowed hard. Gilli sorted herbs and gave him room to speak.

"But I want someone with magic along too," Merlin said all in a rush. "You don't have to come, of course –"

Gilli cut off his backpedaling. "Of course I'm coming," he said flatly. There was no way he wouldn't, when Merlin asked. "Where are we going?'

Merlin stood up and came to lean on the workbench by Gilli, wrapping his arms tightly around himself.

"I don't know if I've ever told you," he said in a low, pinched voice that said he'd had too many secrets dragged out of him lately, "but I'm the last dragonlord."

"You mentioned you were a dragonlord once," Gilli said. He paused in sorting his herbs and looked up at Merlin, who was still unfairly taller than him. "You know you don't have to tell me all your secrets for me to trust you, right?" he said, and when Merlin froze, as if no one had said that to him lately, he scoffed and added, "We both have magic, Merlin; keeping secrets is how we _live."_

He deliberately did not say _survive,_ because keeping secrets was almost as much a way of life for them as it was a way not to get burned, and Gilli knew it.

Merlin relaxed, letting his arms loosen and fall to his sides, and Gilli again felt as if he'd said something that Merlin needed to hear.

"This is actually relevant to what I'm asking, I promise," Merlin said, but his voice was far less tense. "There's a dragon I called from her egg a few years ago, but I – I lost track of her since. I heard of a sighting recently, and she's my responsibility, so I'm going to find her."

His voice had become tense again by the end, and Gilli understood why; asking someone to go face a dragon was a rather tall order. But all he said was, "I'm surprised you told the Queen you were doing this."

"I promised the Queen I'd stay in Camelot," Merlin answered quietly. "I don't want to sneak off for days and leave her wondering if I've abandoned her."

"You're the noblest man I've ever met," Gilli said simply, and ignored Merlin's surprised stammering. "When do we leave? And how likely am I to need to heal burns?"

They left the next morning, Merlin, Gilli, and two knights Merlin had introduced as Sir Leon and Sir Percival.

Gilli guessed the knights' presence was by the Queen's command, because though Merlin seemed to be on decent terms with them, he was also tense around them, especially Sir Leon. Gilli stayed quiet on the edges; he knew better than to draw attention to himself in the presence of knights.

They had traveled two days' journey from Camelot and settled in the forest to sleep for the night. Merlin had taken watch, which the knights evidently trusted him to do, but an hour or so after Gilli had gone to sleep, Merlin shook him awake. In the dim moonlight, his face was stern and drawn.

"Where are we going?" Gilli asked, when they had made their way away from the camp.

"To meet Aithusa," Merlin answered. "I promised Gwen I'd have someone with me when I met her."

And he didn't want that person to be one of the knights, Gilli translated. That was perfectly understandable, given everything.

Not that Gilli wasn't a bit worried about meeting a dragon, but he at least had his ring on his finger. He had more of a chance of dispelling dragonfire than they did.

Merlin led him quickly and quietly to a clearing in the woods. As far as Gilli could see, there was no sign of a dragon there. But Merlin cleared his throat, clenched his hands, stepped out of the trees, and fairly roared something at the sky.

Moments later a white dragon appeared, clearing the trees to thump down in the clearing. It was smaller than Gilli had expected, and more pathetic – it seemed to be scarred, and though it landed in the clearing, it backed away from Merlin as far as it could go, its light eyes nearly staring out of its head.

"Aithusa," Merlin said very gently. He was speaking English now. "You don't have to be afraid of me. I'm sorry."

The dragon made a terrible, pitiful sound, as though it was gargling rocks in its throat; then it lowered its head and shook it violently.

"You still can't speak, can you?" Merlin asked, and his voice was heavy with grief. "It's okay. Just speak in my mind."

The dragon lifted its head to stare at Merlin, and fierce defiance suddenly flamed in its eyes. To his surprise, Gilli could hear the echo of its voice in his mind, like a thin voice lost in the wind and fog, though he could tell if he were to hear it clearly it would be a commanding voice indeed.

_What right do you have to command me, dragonlord? You told me it was safe to come from my egg, and it was anything but safe. You slew my lady, the only one who cared about me. You have sent me away whenever I come near you. You care nothing for me._

"That's not true," Merlin said quickly. "Aithusa –" he began, faltered, and hesitated before trying again.

"I don't know what I can say," he admitted heavily. "I have failed you. I thought you would be safe with Kilgarrah. I never dreamed you would ally with Morgana. Trust me, I did not want to be your enemy."

_Morgana was dying alone,_ the dragon shot back. _No one should die alone. And we were tortured together. You never even reached out to me in mind. Who should I be loyal to?_

"I'm sorry," Merlin said again, helplessly. But his own eyes flared in anger, and he suddenly burst out, "You were born the Light of the Sun. You were meant to be a symbol of hope for me and Arthur and Albion. And then you forge the sword that kills the King! How could you betray all you were meant to be like that?"

_You struggle to bear your own destiny,_ the dragon retorted, _and you would reproach me for failing mine? When I had less direction in how to follow it than you did?_

Merlin flinched at the word destiny. His flare of anger had passed; he bowed his head, looking utterly defeated.

"I am sorry, Aithusa," he said again. "I have failed you – more than I even know, I expect. I had no one to teach me how to be a dragonlord, but that is no excuse. Just now I – I merely wanted to see you again and to try to understand."

The dragon straightened and watched him for a very long moment through narrowed eyes; then it seemed to relax.

_If I failed to live up to the responsibilities placed on me, I do not know if I can hold you responsible for failing too,_ it said. Slowly, very slowly, one claw at a time, it crept across the clearing. Merlin didn't move, scarcely seemed to breathe, and neither did Gilli. But the dragon kept coming, and at last it reached out its long neck and pressed its head against Merlin's hand. Very, very tentatively he turned his hand and scratched lightly over its head.

The dragon let out a long exhale – thankfully free from flames – and curled up by Merlin's side, letting his hand rest on its head for a long moment.

_I am lonely,_ it said distantly and simply, _and I have never stopped wanting my dragonlord to care. Perhaps, someday, we could be kin as we were meant to be._

There was so much longing in the little dragon's words that it nearly overwhelmed Gilli's mind.

"Perhaps," Merlin said, his voice thick with tears, and then he added, as if the words cost him something to say, "I will be at Camelot. You can come to me there, if you wish. I do care," he added passionately, "and I promise, I vow on my magic that I do everything in my power to be the dragonlord I was meant to be in the future."

The dragon spent another minute or two under his hand; then it withdrew and bowed its head to him in a stately way. If it said anything more, Gilli couldn't hear it. Then it snapped out its wings and was gone over the treetops.

Merlin moved back to the treeline near Gilli; for a moment he rested his hand against a tree and didn't speak.

Gilli knew that the conversation between Merlin and the dragon had been filled with references to people and events that he was clueless about, and he didn't intend to interrogate Merlin. The most important thing, he thought, was that both of them had been radiating an overwhelming sense of not only anger and resentment, but also loss and longing, a yearning to be the kin they were meant to be. Whatever the obstacles in the way – and they appeared to be large – Gilli thought there was a good chance that someday Merlin and the white dragon would truly be friends.

He reached out to squeeze Merlin's shoulder; Merlin jumped, as though for a moment he had forgotten he was there, then looked up with a wan smile. Before he could say anything self-deprecating, Gilli said with confidence, "She will come to Camelot someday."

"You can't know that," Merlin said, but something lightened in his eyes all the same.

"Oh, I think I can," Gilli told him.

"So you're a seer now?" Merlin asked, but he seemed relieved to be teased instead of quizzed about the conversation.

"Maybe we all have a touch of seer in us," Gilli offered, and when Merlin made a disbelieving sound, he protested, "You were the one who predicted our paths would cross again!"

He left his hand on Merlin's shoulder until they got into trees too thick to walk comfortably side-by-side.

The knights were unsurprisingly a bit startled when Merlin informed them the next morning that he had done what he had come to do and was ready to return to Camelot.

"But you promised the Queen you wouldn't speak to the dragon alone!" Sir Leon protested, sounding on the verge of angry.

"I didn't break my promise," Merlin answered, slinging his saddle over the back of his horse. "I wasn't alone."

He shot a look at Gilli, and Sir Leon followed the look. Gilli forced himself to meet the knight's eyes steadily, and thought he saw relief form in them as Leon absorbed what Merlin had said.

"Right," Sir Leon said. "Toward Camelot it is, then."

Of all the things Gilli had expected to come out of that trip to meet a dragon, the solution to the ostracism of his healing shop certainly wasn't one of them.

A few weeks after they had returned from their little dragon adventure, Gilli was puttering around the shop without much to do one afternoon when there was suddenly a commotion in the street. Someone was shouting, "Open the doors!" and a moment later the doors to his little shop flew open so hard they banged into the walls and a flood of red-cloaked knights poured through.

For a moment old fears rose up and choked Gilli completely. _The Queen has revoked her stance on magic – the knights have come to arrest me – I'm going to be flung in the dungeons – I'll be burned or beheaded in the morning – can Merlin save me, or is he in the dungeons too?_

The next moment he realized that several of the knights were carrying a fallen knight on a litter, which they were laying down on his healing table, and he hurried forward. One of the knights met his eyes with a desperate look. "You're the healer, aren't you?" he demanded, and at Gilli's dumb nod, he added, "Well, hurry up and heal our comrade!"

Gilli stepped to the side of the stretcher – and swallowed hard. The knight's chain mail had somehow been broken, and there was a deep gash through his stomach. The other knights were holding it closed, but it was an ugly wound.

Gilli recovered his voice. "I thought you knights only allowed the Court Physician to treat you," he said.

"Normally, yes," the knight who had spoken said, "but Percival insisted we bring him to you. Now can you do anything for him? We don't have much of a window to take him to Gaius if you can do nothing."

Gilli had barely been listening after the name Percival; stunned, he looked up and saw that the wounded knight was indeed Percival, the quiet knight who had gone on the dragon journey with them. Gilli had had the impression that Sir Percival had spent that whole trip watching him, even if he said very little.

His mind whirred and went blank. Why had Percival, of all people, whom Merlin hadn't wanted to see the dragon, insisted on coming here? Was the knight so protective of Merlin, who had seemed fairly at ease with him, that he'd risk his life to test out what type of a man Gilli really was? Was he trying to show up the limitations of magical healing by giving Gilli an impossible task? Was this some sort of twisted test?

Whatever else he was, Percival was apparently a perceptive man, for he met Gilli's eyes suddenly, his own too bright with pain. "It's not a test," he whispered out, between gasping breaths.

And that decided it. If Percival wasn't intentionally trying to mock him with this, if he was actually trusting him, Gilli had to do something now. Besides that, Percival was clearly in pain, and Gilli hated pain.

"Stand back," he said shortly to the knights. It had been a long time since his magic had burned the walls around him, but he'd rarely done any healing on the abdomen, and though he trusted his magic absolutely to solve the problem, he wasn't quite sure what the effects would be.

The knights obligingly stepped back, and Gilli glanced at his ring and stepped forward. Normally he'd have given Percival some laudanum first, but the other knight was right; this was an emergency.

He set his hands on the bleeding wound, looked at his ring, and concentrated.

There was a flash under his hands, and Percival drew in a tight gasp, but when Gilli lifted his hands, the gash was nothing more than a thin pink line.

There were gasps all around, whispers of wonder and disbelief. Gilli didn't listen to them. He turned and quickly mixed laudanum with willow bark and honey to cut the bitterness, which he gave Percival.

"Drink that before you try standing up," he ordered. Then he smeared some honey mixed with sage and goldenseal onto clean cloths and bound the site of the wound. It never hurt to be doubly sure, and binding wounds after he had healed them seemed to help convince people he had actually done something.

"There you go, sir," he said at last, stepping back.

Percival put the cup down and swung to his feet with no difficulty, leading to more whispering. Standing, he towered over Gilli, but he looked down to meet Gilli's eyes and gave him a surprisingly sweet, youthful smile.

"Thank you, healer," he said, and his voice was completely sincere.

When they had gone, Gilli's knees finally did what they had been wanting to do for the last fifteen minutes and gave out. He sat down hard and ran shaking hands over his face.

"A knight," he muttered under his breath. "By magic, will the wonders never cease."

But from that day forward, the ice had been broken. Gilli had officially healed a knight with a wound that was often fatal, and many people had seen it. More than the over-bold started coming to him in the next weeks, and suddenly it wasn't uncommon to have knights pouring through the door of his shop at any hour of the day or night with impossible wounds to be healed. It took Gilli a couple of months to stop thinking he was going to be thrown into the dungeons every time they barged in.

But it was a step forward, and not a small one, to letting people understand magic, and for that Gilli would have put up with anything.

Percival, in a quiet way, somehow became a friend. He brought all his hurts to Gilli to heal, it seemed, no matter how small, and though he never said much, the silent proof of his trust meant a lot to Gilli. There would have been a time when the approval of a fighter like Percival would have meant the world to him, and even now it meant something.

He tried to express some of this to Percival once, when the man was in his shop on the excuse of bruised knuckles, and Percival gave him that wide, delighted smile.

"I'll always have the back of magic like yours," he said.

Gilli had never thought he'd be warm all over at the approval of a Camelot knight, but times were clearly changing, because somehow he was.

A quarter of a year had passed after the trip to meet Aithusa when Gilli heard shouting one morning. He left behind the herbs he was sorting and went to the door to find out what was going on.

"Dragon!" was the cry on his neighbor's tongues. And "Dragon!" was spreading throughout the lower town. Everyone was on edge, and no one seemed to know what to do.

Gilli looked up, and saw a pair of white wings overhead, aiming deliberately for the palace. He grinned suddenly.

"Don't worry," he said firmly. "She's just coming to meet the Court Sorcerer."

He had said it loudly enough for many people to hear, and those around him relaxed a bit. "He is a sorcerer too," one man mumbled, and when the dragon headed straight for the castle and no fires started, people began returning to their business.

To think that people were _trusting_ him now because, like the Court Sorcerer, he had magic. Gilli had never dreamed he would see the day.

He was beaming as he went back to his work, and only a part of that was because he was very glad that Aithusa had finally come to see Merlin.

"Your arm's all good," Gilli told his small patient, smiling.

The boy jumped off the stool he was sitting on, swinging the formerly broken arm easily. "Thanks!" he exclaimed, skipping out the door.

Gilli followed him to look out into the street. He had a fairly regular stream of people coming to him for healing now, and he wasn't the only person besides Merlin to openly practice magic in Camelot; a family had moved here last month and sold bunches of flowers with small, harmless, but beautiful enchantments on them in the town square.

He realized that there was a wave of murmurs running through the street, and looked up to see Merlin coming toward him with Aithusa walking at his heels.

She had shown up in the sky often enough that no one panicked at her appearance anymore, but there was still a tension to seeing her in the street. Gilli, though, was busy noticing that she had definitely grown from when he had first seen her; she had lost her half-starved appearance, her eyes no longer seemed too large for her face, and she walked by Merlin as though she trusted him, instead of cringing away.

Gilli was glad; he didn't like seeing even a dragon in pain.

Merlin looked up and caught his eyes. "Gilli!" he exclaimed cheerfully. "Do you have a moment?"

"For you? Of course," Gilli answered, glad to see Merlin, too, in good spirits, and stepped back to let man and dragon into his shop.

"What brings you two down here?" he asked.

Merlin shut the door and suddenly became very serious.

"Aithusa bears the traces of old wounds," he said. "We wondered if there was anything you might be able to do about them."

For a moment, all Gilli could think was that when he'd first decided to learn to heal and not fight after leaving Camelot the first time, he'd never dreamed he'd be using his healing for a dragon.

But first time for everything, right? "I can see if I can do something, at least," he said.

With a quick, slightly uncoordinated flap of her wings, Aithusa hopped up to sit on the table he got patients to lie down on. She was large enough that she covered it completely.

Gilli used a quick bit of magic to make it a bit larger to accommodate her and shave the legs a bit shorter so she was at a comfortable height to work at. That was magic he had learned long ago to make his job easier, and he thought nothing of it now, but Merlin said approvingly, "Nice work."

"Thanks," Gilli said, grinning in spite of himself, and summoning his magic through the ring, he began looking for old wounds he could heal on the white dragon.

There were more than he would have expected, old scars with remnants of tissue twisted back together unnaturally underneath, and Gilli felt a wave of overwhelming rage at whoever had dared torture a little dragon so. He had to let go of his magic for a moment and breathe to make himself calm down before he let the magic do something he regretted.

There was something productive he could do to counteract the evil done in the past in front of him now, and since his days fighting Uther Gilli had learned how not to give into revenge. The idea was still incredibly appealing, however, as he gathered his magic again and began trying to undo the twisted healing of the wounds and to help them join properly.

It took him a while, and very little was said in the room as he worked, except for Merlin occasionally telling him that Aithusa wanted him to look at a certain place. There were some places that Gilli couldn't heal any more properly than they were already healed – "I don't know if she'll ever be able to talk properly," he said regretfully after looking at her neck – but more than not he could do something for. There were several gashes in her wings that he was very proud of being able to reheal along much neater lines.

"I think that's all I can do," he said at last, standing up.

"Thank you so much," Merlin told him, eyes shining with sincerity. "Aithusa thanks you too."

"Of course," Gilli said, smiling.

The dragon bent her head to him; then she hopped off the table. Gilli reset it to its usual proportions as Aithusa and Merlin seemed to have a conversation in the doorway; Merlin was speaking too low for Gilli to hear easily, and he didn't try eavesdropping.

When Merlin said, louder and cheerful, "I'll see you next week, then?" and Aithusa bobbed her head in answer, Gilli came to the door to stand by Merlin to watch her fly away. Few people even bothered looking up as she soared over the rooftops.

"She's flying more evenly than she was before," Gilli commented, noticing that she seemed less wobbly in the air and feeling very proud of what he'd been able to do for her wings.

"Thanks to you," Merlin told him.

Gilli simply smiled.

"I couldn't hear her in my mind this time," he commented.

Merlin gave him a sharp glance. "You could before?" he asked.

"The first time I saw her," Gilli admitted.

Merlin nodded, looking rather pained. "Dragons usually communicate only with dragonlords," he said. "I think Aithusa was so lonely that she was casting her mind-speak out to anyone who had a chance of hearing it, at that point."

"Good thing you sought her out, then," Gilli said, and turned into his shop to set it in order before Merlin could protest; he had gotten some herbs out to help the boy who'd come before Aithusa and hadn't had a chance to sort them back into their boxes yet. He was pleased when Merlin followed him in and came to lean against the bench by him.

"You have quite a collection of herbs there," he commented, glancing over Gilli's meticulous organization. "I used to gather them from the woods for Gaius."

Gilli had almost forgotten that his friend had been apprenticed under a physician at one point. "Would you mind going with me the next time I go?" he asked. "You must have a better idea than I do about where to find the herbs around here."

He wondered after he'd said it if he'd overstepped, but Merlin's smile was suddenly brighter and more real than Gilli could remember seeing it in a very long time.

"I'd love to come," he said. "It's been too long since I've done something as simple as herb-picking. The Court Sorcerer doesn't have much time for healing, unfortunately."

"And that's why I'm here to pick up the slack," Gilli teased him lightly.

The front door suddenly flew open, and Gilli spun quickly to face whoever had flung it nearly into the wall, noting Merlin doing the same in his periphery.

It was one of the knights, Sir Lionel, who seemed to be visiting Gilli about once a week for some trouble or another. This time he had his hand clapped over a bleeding cut on one arm.

"Someday I swear I will teach you knights some respect for my front door," Gilli reprimanded him mildly, grabbing a glass of the willow bark and honey he had learned to keep on hand and coming around the counter.

Lionel had the grace to look sheepish. "I beg your pardon," he said.

Gilli gave it with a nod and handed him the cup. "Drink that. What did you do this time?"

"Training accident, I'm afraid," the knight admitted, letting go of his wound to take the cup.

Gilli took the wounded arm in his hand as Lionel drained the drink. This was a simple, shallow cut, looking worse than it was. He healed it with a quick flash of his eyes and ring.

"Thanks, healer!" Lionel said cheerfully, setting down the cup. "Oh – my lord," he added suddenly, sounding surprised. "I'm sorry, I didn't see you there!"

Gilli followed the direction of his eyes and noticed Merlin, just moving out of the shadows by one wall of his shop. If he'd been standing a foot back, even Gilli would have had a hard time seeing him.

"No need to apologize, sir knight," Merlin said easily, coming forward to sit on a stool as Gilli got water and cloths and washed off Lionel's cut.

In a couple moments, he was done, and Lionel sprang up. "Many thanks again!" he called cheerfully. "Good day, my lord," he added, with a slight bow to Merlin, and was gone, banging Gilli's door as he went out.

"So that's why the number of knights coming to Gaius has been going down," Merlin remarked, relaxing on the stool. "They're all taking their cuts to you for an instant fix now."

"You must have known that before," Gilli said, going to dump out the slightly bloodied water. "I've been dealing with most of the severe wounds for several months, I think. Ever since Percival came here."

"I knew that," Merlin replied, smiling a bit. "I didn't know you dealt in all the little things."

"For now I do," Gilli answered. He put down the bowl and turned to look Merlin in the eyes. "Lionel startled you, crashing in like that, didn't he?"

Merlin's shoulders hunched and he looked away. "I know him," he said, deflecting. "He's a good man."

"For the first two months, every time the knights came in, I thought I was about to be carted off to the dungeons to be burned for using my magic," Gilli said simply. "It's not so easy, is it, letting go of that fear."

Merlin's smile was a small and twisted thing when he looked up. "There were so many years when men in red cloaks storming into Gaius's chambers was a signal that Uther had decided to go on another purge of magic," he said quietly.

Gilli drew in his breath. "It would have been even worse for you, living right under Uther's thumb all those years," he said quietly. "It's not easy to forget."

"I wish it was," Merlin said, a touch bitterly, and Gilli had the sense he was thinking about forgetting much more than that. He doubted it would do any good to ask, however.

He turned back to his work and worked in silence for a few minutes; then Merlin sighed and stood up.

"I should get back to the castle," he said. "Gwen will want to consult about the open court tomorrow."

He still had shadows in his eyes. Gilli thought quickly.

"Merlin!" he called, making the warlock stop by the door. "I'm going to go pick herbs tomorrow morning. You want to come?"

Merlin's answering smile chased the shadows away from his eyes. "I'll meet you at the gate at dawn," he said, and then he was gone.

The years came and the years went, and they brought changes. More and more people started making a living by their magic in Camelot; Camelot actually became a refuge for those with magic when other countries were a bit slower about repealing the ban. Gilli and Merlin got herbs and occasionally did crazy magical things together, and Gilli took one flight and one flight only on Aithusa after Merlin dared him to do it. Gilli wound up getting so much business, even though he wasn't the only healer in Camelot, that he had to limit his healing to the more serious wounds. For whatever reason, however, he kept his doors open to the knights any hour of the day or night, no matter how slight their problem. He had somehow grown fond of the men in red cloaks over the years.

"You lost her to Uther before too?" Gilli asked incredulously after Freya came back. "And you still defended him against me? By magic, man, how did you do it?"

Merlin's eyes were shadowed in a way they rarely were nowadays. "I had a destiny," he said quietly.

Gilli watched him closely for a moment. "You don't resent it anymore, do you?" he asked, knowing Merlin would hate the question but knowing he had to ask regardless. He'd never said less than the truth to Merlin. "You don't follow the Pendragons just because of a destiny?"

Merlin turned back to him quickly, his eyes lightening and becoming clear. "Of course not," he said. "I follow the Pendragons out of friendship and loyalty."

And Gilli knew what Merlin sounded like lying. Out of everything that had stayed with him from his first visit to Camelot, the thing that had haunted him the most was Merlin's pleas that he hadn't forgotten who he was, as if he knew Gilli was right in the accusation and he couldn't face it all the same. He had wished, fiercely, afterwards that something would happen to let Merlin live free, because no one deserved to lose themselves bit by bit to a mask, a role they were forced to play to survive.

Merlin wasn't lying now, and Gilli felt a deep measure of peace. He changed the subject.

To all the bonds of kinship between Merlin and Gilli, there was eventually added the tie of being two of the few who were left that could remember the terror of magic being a death penalty.

Despite the tendency of those who had magic to be long-lived, rediscovered now that the lives of those with magic weren't being cut short routinely, Merlin and Freya and Gilli outlived most of the others who had known the days when using a bit of magic was a terrible risk. (It was a fact, known and usually not talked about, that the King and Queen of Camelot shared in this extended lifespan.)

They almost never talked about the remembrance of those days, Merlin and Gilli. But it was there, a silent, unspoken bond between them.

They were riding back to Camelot together one afternoon, after riding out to gather herbs. Gilli still used them occasionally in healing, and Merlin still liked riding out with him when he got the chance.

"She's come a long way," Merlin said, halting his horse and looking down at Camelot. The city was sprawled out below them, bigger and cleaner than the first time Gilli had seen it, and in the gathering dusk there were flashes of magic here and there as people used minor whirlwinds to clear up, lit their shops with magical lights, and in one square started a controlled magical bonfire for a dance.

It was a very different Camelot from the one they had both known a very long time ago.

"She's improved a lot," Gilli said quietly. "Largely thanks to you, Court Sorcerer."

Merlin laughed lightly at Gilli's words. "Me and a lot of others," he said cheerfully. "Race you back to Camelot?"

"You think our old bones can handle that?" Gilli protested, but he was grinning.

"You can heal them in an instant if they don't!" Merlin shouted over his shoulder as he started his horse to a gallop.

"Cheater!" Gilli shouted after him as he urged his own horse forward.

The things one did for kin.

**Author's Note:**

> Note, I'm not trying to bash the druids here. They had pretty legitimate reasons for thinking Emrys was going to bring magic back. Also not nearly all druids blamed Merlin, but even one would have been enough for him to feel guilty. And on top of Arthur's death, being blamed for being unable to fulfill that bit of destiny was a bit Not Good for Merlin, also understandably. And the chapter title is based off a chapter title in Anne's House of Dreams, which is based off John 8:32.


End file.
